Fourth Congress1922

5 November – 5 December

Theses on the Eastern Question

I. The Growth of the Revolutionary Movement in the East

The Second Congress of the Communist International basing itself on
the work of Soviet administration in the East and the growth of the
nationalist-revolutionary movement in the colonies outlined the
principles of the national-colonial question in the period of prolonged
struggle between imperialism and the proletarian dictatorship.

Since that time the struggle against imperialist oppression in the
colonies and semi-colonial countries has become considerably more acute
as a consequence of the deepening post-war political and economic
crises of imperialism.

Evidence of this is served by: (1) the collapse of the Sevres Treaty
on the partition of Turkey and the possibility of the complete
restoration of the national and political independence of the latter;
(2) the stormy growth of a national-revolutionary movement in India,
Mesopotamia, Egypt, Morocco, China and Korea; (3) the hopeless internal
crisis of Japanese imperialism giving rise to the rapid growth of
elements of a bourgeois-democratic revolution in the country and the
transition by the Japanese proletariat to independent class struggle;
(4) the awakening of the labour movement in all countries of the East
and the formation of communist parties almost in all parts of the East.

The facts enumerated above indicate a change in the social basis of
the revolutionary movement in the colonies. This change leads to the
anti-imperialist struggle becoming more acute; this struggle is no
longer being led exclusively by the feudal classes and the national
bourgeoisie which is preparing to compromise with imperialism.

The imperialist war of 1914-18 and the prolonged crisis which
followed it, particularly in Europe, have weakened the power of the
great powers over the colonies. On the other hand, these same
circumstances are narrowing the economic bases and spheres of influence
of world capitalism, have rendered imperialist rivalry for the colonies
more acute and in this way have disturbed the equilibrium of the whole
world imperialist system (the fight for oil, Anglo-French conflict in
Asia Minor, the Japanese-American rivalry for the domination of the
Pacific Ocean, etc.).

It is precisely this weakening of imperialist pressure in the
colonies, together with the increasing rivalry between various
imperialist groups, that has facilitated the development of native
capitalism in the colonies and semi colonial countries which are
outgrowing the narrow framework of the domination of the imperialist
great powers. Hitherto the capitalists of the great powers in
maintaining their monopoly rights to secure super-profits from trade,
industry and the taxation of backward countries have striven to isolate
these from world economic intercourse. The demand for national and
economic independence put forward by the national movements in the
colonies serves to express the needs of bourgeois development in these
countries. The growth of native productive forces in these colonies,
therefore, causes an irreconcilable antagonism of interests between
them and world imperialism, for the essence of imperialism consists in
using the varying levels of development of productive forces in various
parts of the economic world for the purpose of extracting monopoly
super-profits.

II. Conditions of the Struggle

The backwardness of the colonies is reflected in the motley
character of the national-revolutionary movements against imperialism,
which in their turn, reflect the varying states of transition from
feudal and feudal-patriarchal relations to capitalism. This variety of
conditions makes its impression upon the ideology of these movements.
To the extent that capitalism in the colonial countries arises and
develops from feudal bases in hybrid, imperfect and intermediary forms,
which gives predominance above all to merchant capitalism, the rise of
bourgeois democracy from feudal-bureaucratic and feudal-agrarian
elements proceeds often by devious and protracted paths. This
represents the chief obstacle for successful mass struggles against
imperialist oppression as the foreign imperialists in all the backward
countries convert the feudal (and partly also the semi-feudal,
semi-bourgeois) upper classes of native society into agents of their
domination (military governors – Tuchuns – in China, the native
aristocracy and tax farmers – the zamindars and talukdars – in India,
the feudal bureaucracy in Persia, the agrarian-planter capital
formations in Egypt, etc.).

For that reason the dominant classes in the colonies and the
semi-colonial countries are incapable and unwilling to lead the
struggle against imperialism in so far as this struggle tends to become
a revolutionary mass movement. Only where the feudal-patriarchal system
has not decayed to such an extent as to completely separate the native
aristocracy from the mass of the people, as among the nomadic and semi
nomadic peoples, can those upper classes take up the active leadership
of the struggle against imperialist violence (Mesopotamia, Morocco,
Mongolia).

In Moslem countries the nationalist movement at first expresses its
ideology in religious-political watchwords of pan-Islamism, which
enables diplomats and officials of the great powers to exploit the
prejudices and ignorance of the masses of the people to combat this
movement (British imperialism’s gains of pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism,
the British plan of transferring the caliphate to India and the
gambling of French imperialism with its “Moslem sympathies”). With the
growth and expansion of the national-liberation movement the religious
political watchwords of pan-Islamism are substituted by concrete
political demands. The struggle for the separation of temporal power
from the caliphate which took place in Turkey recently is evidence of
this.

This main task common to all national-revolutionary movements is to
bring about national unity and achieve political independence. The real
and consistent solution of this depends on the extent to which the
national movement in any particular country is capable of attracting to
itself the toiling masses and break off all connections with the
reactionary feudal elements and include in its programme the social
demands of the masses.

Being completely aware that the will of a nation for political
independence in varying historical conditions can be expressed by the
most diverse classes, the Communist International supports all
national-revolutionary movements against imperialism. At the same time
it does not lose sight of the fact that only a consistent revolutionary
line of policy based on the active support of the masses, and the
unreserved break with all advocates of compromise with imperialism in
the interests of maintaining class domination, can lead the oppressed
masses to victory. The connection between the native bourgeoisie and
the feudal reactionary elements enables the imperialists to make wide
use of feudal anarchy, the rivalry between various leaders and tribes,
the antagonism between town and country, the struggle between the
castes and national religious sects, etc. for the purposes of
disorganising the popular movement (China, Persia, Kurdistan,
Mesopotamia).

III. Agrarian Question

The majority of countries in the East (India, Persia, Egypt Syria,
Mesopotamia) the agrarian question is of primary importance in the
struggle for emancipation from the domination of the despotism of the
great powers. Exploiting and ruining the peasant majorities in the
backward nations, imperialism deprives them of the elementary means of
existence while the low development of industry scattered among a few
junctional points in the country renders it impossible for it to absorb
the superfluous agrarian population which at the same time has no means
of emigrating. The peasants remaining on the land are pauperised and
converted into serfs. While in the advanced countries prior to the war,
industrial crises served as regulators of social production, this
function in the colonies is performed by famine. Vitally interested in
securing the greatest profits with the least expenditure of capital,
imperialism strives all it can to maintain in the backward countries
the feudal usurious form of exploiting labour power. In some countries
like India, it assumes the monopoly rights of the native feudal state
to the land and converts the land tribute into feudal dues and the
zamindars and talukdars into its agents. In other countries it extracts
ground-rent through the native organisations of large landowners, as is
the case in Persia, Morocco, Egypt, etc. The struggle for the
emancipation of the land from feudal dues and feudal obstacles thus
assumes the character of a struggle for national emancipation against
imperialism and feudal large landownership (examples of this are the
Moplah rising against the landowners and the British in India in the
autumn of 1921 and the revolt of the Sikhs in 1922).

Only the agrarian revolution aiming at the expropriation of the
large landowners can rouse the vast peasant masses destined to have a
decisive influence in the struggles against imperialism. The fear of
agrarian watchwords on the part of the bourgeois nationalists (India,
Persia, Egypt) is evidence of the close ties existing between the
native bourgeoisie with the large feudal and feudal-bourgeois
landowners and their ideological and political dependence upon the
latter. The hesitation and wavering of this class must be used by the
revolutionary elements for systematic criticism and exposure of the
lack of resolution of the bourgeois leaders of the national movement.
It is precisely this lack of resolution that hinders the organisation
of the toiling masses as is proved by the bankruptcy of the tactics of
noncooperation in India.

The revolutionary movement in the backward countries of the East
cannot be successful unless it is based on the action of masses of the
peasantry. For that reason the revolutionary parties in all eastern
countries must define their agrarian programme which should demand the
complete abolition of feudalism and its survivals expressed in the
forms of large landownership and tax farming. In order that the peasant
masses may be drawn into active participation in the struggle for
national liberation, it is necessary to proclaim the radical reform of
the basis of land ownership. It is necessary also to compel the
bourgeois-nationalist parties to the greatest extent possible to adopt
this revolutionary agrarian programme.

IV. The Labour Movement in the East

The young labour movement in the East is a product of the
development of native capitalism during the last few years. Hitherto
the working class in the East, even its fundamental nucleus, has been
in a state of transition, on the path from small handicraft to large
capitalist industry. In so far as the bourgeois-nationalist
intelligentsia draws the revolutionary movement of the working class
into the struggle against imperialism, this intelligentsia provide the
leaders for the embryonic trade-union organisations and their sections
in the first stages of their development. In the first stages, these
movements do not extend beyond the limits of the “common national”
interests of bourgeois democracy (strikes against imperialist
bureaucracy and administration in China and India). Frequently, as was
already shown at the Second Congress of the Comintern, representatives
of bourgeois nationalism exploiting the moral and political authority
of Soviet Russia, and playing to the class instincts of the workers,
clothed their bourgeois-democratic strivings in “socialist” and
“communist” forms, in order by these means, sometimes unconsciously, to
divert the embryonic proletarian organisations from the direct tasks of
class organisations (the Eshil Ordu in Turkey which painted pan-Turkism
in communist colours, the “state socialism” advocated by some
representatives of the Kuomintang in China).

In spite of this, the trade-union and political movement of the
working class in the backward countries has made considerable progress
in recent years. The formation of independent proletarian class parties
in almost all the eastern countries is a remarkable fact, although the
overwhelming majority of these parties must still undergo considerable
internal reorganisation in order to free themselves from amateurity,
sectarianism and other defects. The fact that the Communist
International estimated the potential importance of the labour movement
in the East right from the very beginning is a fact of colossal
importance, as it is a clear expression of the real international unity
of the proletariat of the whole world under the banner of communism.
The Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals to this very day have not
found support in a single backward country precisely because they play
the part of “servants” to European and American imperialism.

V. The General Tasks of the Communist Parties in the East

While the bourgeois nationalists regard the labour movement merely
from the point of view of its importance as a means for securing
victory for themselves, the international proletariat regards the young
labour movement of the East from the point of view of its revolutionary
future. Under capitalism the backward countries cannot achieve modern
technique and culture without paying enormous tribute in the form of
barbarous exploitation and oppression for the advantage of the
capitalists of the great powers. Alliance with the proletariat of
advanced countries is dictated not merely by the interests of a common
struggle against imperialism but also by the fact that only by a
victory of the proletariat of the advanced countries can the workers of
the East obtain unselfish aid in the development of their productive
forces. An alliance with the proletariat in the West will lay the path
towards an international federation of Soviet republics. The Soviet
system, for the backward nations, represents the least painful form of
transition from primitive conditions of existence to the highest
culture of communism, destined to take the place of the capitalist
method of production and distribution all over the world. This is
proved by the experience of the development of the Soviet system in the
liberated colonies formerly comprising the Russian empire. Only a
Soviet form of administration is able to guarantee the consistent
fulfilment of the agrarian peasant revolution. The specific conditions
of agriculture in certain countries of the East (artificial irrigation)
maintained in the past by a peculiar organisation of collective
cooperation on a feudal-patriarchal basis and disrupted by predatory
capitalism demand also a state organisation of such a type as would be
able systematically and in an organised manner to serve public needs.
As a consequence of special climatic and historical conditions the
cooperation of small producers in the East is destined to play an
important role in the transition period.

The objective tasks of colonial revolutions exceed the limit of
bourgeois democracy by the very fact that a decisive victory is
incompatible with the domination of world imperialism. While the native
bourgeoisie and bourgeois intelligentsia are the pioneers of colonial
revolutionary movements, with the entry of proletarian and semi
proletarian peasant masses into these movements, however, the rich
bourgeoisie and bourgeois landlords begin to leave it as the social
interests of the masses assume prominence. The young proletariat of the
colonies is still confronted by a prolonged struggle over a whole
historical epoch, a struggle against imperialist exploitation and
against its own ruling classes, striving to secure in its own hands the
monopoly of all the advantages of industrial and cultural development
and to maintain the masses of the toilers in their previous “primitive”
state.

The struggle to secure influence over the peasant masses should
prepare the native proletariat for the role of political leadership.
Only after having accomplished this preparatory work on its own
training and that of the social classes closely allied to itself will
it be possible to advance against bourgeois democracy which, amidst the
conditions of the backward East, bears a more hypocritical character
than the West.

The refusal of the communists in the colonies to participate against
imperialist oppression on the pretext of alleged “defence” of
independent class interests is opportunism of the worst kind calculated
only to discredit the proletarian revolution in the East. No less
harmful must be recognised the attempt to isolate oneself from the
immediate and everyday interests of the working class for the sake of
“national unity” or “civil peace” with bourgeois democracy. The
communist and working-class parties in the colonies and semi-colonial
countries are confronted by a twofold task: on the one hand to fight
for the most radical solutions of the problems of bourgeois-democratic
revolution, directed to the conquest of political independence, and on
the other to organise the workers and peasants to fight for their
special class interests and to take advantage of the antagonism
existing in the nationalist bourgeois-democratic camp. In putting
forward special demands, these parties stimulate and release
revolutionary energy which finds no outlet in bourgeois liberal
demands. The working class in the colonies and semi-colonial countries
must know that only by deepening and extending the struggle against the
imperialism of the great powers can its role as revolutionary leader be
fulfilled. On the other hand, the economic and political organisations
and the political training of the working class and the
semi-proletarian classes will facilitate and extend the revolutionary
scope of the struggle against imperialism.

The communist parties in the colonies and semi-colonial countries in
the East, which are still in a more or less embryonic stage, must take
part in every movement that gives them access to the masses. At the
same time, however, they must conduct an energetic campaign against the
patriarchal and craft prejudices and bourgeois influences in the labour
unions, in order to protect these embryonic organisations from
reformist tendencies and in order to convert them into mass fighting
organisations. They must exert all their efforts to organise the
numerous agricultural labourers and artisans of both sexes on the basis
of defending their immediate everyday interests.

VI. The United Anti-Imperialist Front

While in the West amidst the conditions of the transition period,
which is a period of organised accumulation of strength, the watchword
of the united labour front was put forward, in the colonial East it is
at present necessary to put forward the watchword of a united
anti-imperialist front. The expediency of these tactics is dictated by
the prospects of a prolonged struggle against world imperialism
demanding the mobilisation of all revolutionary elements. This
mobilisation becomes all the more necessary from the fact that the
native ruling classes are inclined to make compromise with the foreign
capitalists directed against the fundamental interests of the masses of
the people. Just as the watchword of the united labour front in the
West facilitates the exposure of the social-democratic betrayal of the
interests of the proletariat, so the watchword of the united
anti-imperialist front will facilitate the exposure of the wavering and
hesitation of certain bourgeois-nationalist groups in the East. This
watchword will also help to develop the revolutionary will and to make
more definite the class consciousness of the masses of the toilers and
bring them into the front ranks of the struggle, not only against
imperialism but against all survivals of feudalism.

The labour movement in the colonies and semi-colonial countries must
first of all secure for itself the positions of an independent factor
in the common anti-imperialist front. Only on the basis of the
recognition of this independence and the maintenance of complete
independence is a temporary agreement with bourgeois democracy
permissible and necessary. The proletariat must support and put forward
partial demands such as independent democratic republic, abolition of
all feudal rights and privileges, and enfranchisement of women, etc. in
view of the fact that the present correlation of forces does not permit
it to carry out its Soviet programme. At the same time it must strive
to put forward such demands as will assist in establishing the closest
possible contact between the peasantry and semi-proletarian masses and
the labour movement. To explain to the masses of the toilers the
necessity for an alliance with the international proletariat and the
Soviet republics is one of the most important tasks of the tactics of
the anti-imperialist front. The colonial revolution can be victorious
and defend its gains only in conjunction with the proletarian
revolution in the advanced countries.

The danger of an agreement being arrived at between the bourgeois
nationalists and one or several of the rival imperialist powers in the
semi-colonial countries (China, Persia) or in countries striving to
secure political independence by exploiting the rivalry between the
imperialists (Turkey) is greater than in the colonies. Such an
agreement would signify an irrational division of power between the
native ruling classes and the imperialists, and under the cloak of
formal independence will leave the country in the same position of a
buffer semi-colonial state subordinate to world imperialism.

Recognising the permissibility and inevitability of partial and
temporary compromises for the purposes of securing a respite in the
revolutionary struggle against imperialism, the working class must,
however, irreconcilably resist every attempt at avowed or tacit
division of power between the imperialist and the native ruling classes
aiming at the preservation by the latter of their class privileges. The
demand for a close alliance between the proletariat and Soviet
republics serves as the banner of the united anti-imperialist front.
Simultaneously with the advocacy of this demand, a most determined
struggle must be conducted for a most democratic political regime, in
order to undermine the power of the most politically and socially
reactionary elements, and preserve the freedom of organisation for the
toilers in their struggle for their class interests (the demand for
democratic republics, agrarian reforms, reforms of taxation, the basis
of wide self-government, labour legislation, the protection of child
labour, the protection of mothers and infants, etc.). Even in
independent Turkey, the working class does not enjoy freedom of
organisation, and this may serve as a typical example of the attitude
of the bourgeois nationalists towards the proletariat.

VII. The Tasks of the Proletariat on the Pacific Coast

The necessity for the establishment of an anti-imperialist front is
dictated also by the constant growth of imperialist rivalry. This
rivalry has today assumed such acute forms, that a fresh world war, the
arena of which will be the Pacific Ocean, is inevitable unless an
international revolution forestalls it.

The Washington conference was an attempt to obviate this danger, but
as a matter of fact it succeeded only in rendering the antagonisms
between the imperialists more profound and acute. The recent conflict
between Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-lin in China was a direct consequence
of the failure of Japanese and Anglo-American capitalism to harmonise
their interests at Washington. The new world war which menaces the
world will affect not only Japan, America and England, but also other
capitalist powers (France, Holland, etc.) and threatens to be even more
destructive than the war of 1914-18.

The task of the communist parties in the colonial and semi-colonial
countries on the Pacific Coast is to conduct an extensive propaganda to
explain to the masses the oncoming danger, to call upon them to take up
an active struggle for national liberation and to teach them to regard
Soviet Russia as the bulwark of all the oppressed and exploited masses.

The communist parties in the imperialist countries, America, Japan,
England, Australia, Canada, in view of the threatening danger must not
limit themselves merely to a propaganda against war, but must exert all
their efforts to remove all the disruptive factors from the labour
movement in their respective countries and to prevent the capitalists
taking advantage of national and racial antagonisms. These factors are:
the immigration question and cheap coloured labour.

The system of indentured labour to this very day is the main system
of recruiting coloured workers for the sugar plantations of the
Southern Pacific to which workers are transported from China and India.
This fact has compelled the workers in the imperialist countries to
demand anti-immigration laws against coloured workers as is the case in
America and Australia. These prohibition laws deepen the antagonism
between white and coloured workers and break and weaken the unity of
the labour movement.

The communist parties of America, Canada and Australia must conduct
an energetic campaign against anti-immigration laws and must explain to
the masses of the proletariat in these countries that these laws, by
arousing national hatreds, in the last recourse only damage them.

On the other hand, the capitalists desire to repeal the
anti-immigration laws in order to maintain the free import of cheap
labour, and thus force down the wages of the white workers. This
attempted offensive of the capitalists can be successfully averted only
by the immigrant workers being absorbed in the existing white labour
unions. At the same time the demand must be put forward for raising the
wage of coloured workers to the level of white workers. Such tactics
will expose the plans of the capitalists and at the same time clearly
show to the coloured workers that the international proletariat has no
racial prejudices.

In order to carry out these tactics, the representatives of the
revolutionary proletariat of the countries on the Pacific should gather
at a pan-Pacific conference in order to work out correct lines of
actions and to decide on the proper forms of organisation for the
purpose of uniting all the proletarians among the races of the Pacific.

VIII. The Task of the Communist Parties in the Home Countries

The great importance of the colonial revolutionary movements for the
cause of the international proletarian revolution makes necessary an
intensification of the work in the colonies, particularly by the
communist parties of the imperialist countries.

French imperialism is basing all its calculations on the suppression
of the proletarian revolutionary struggle in France and Europe by using
its colonial slaves as the fighting reserve of the counterrevolution.

British and American imperialism continues to divide the labour
movement by maintaining on its side the aristocracy of labour by
promises of a share in its super-profits obtained by the exploitation
of the colonies.

Every communist party in the countries possessing colonies must
undertake the task of organising systematic ideological and material
assistance to the labour and revolutionary movement in the colonies.
They must carry out a persistent and determined struggle against the
quasi-socialist, colonising tendencies prevailing among certain
categories of well-paid European workers in the colonies. European
communist workers in the colonies must strive to rally around
themselves the native proletariat and gain its confidence by concrete
economic demands (equal pay for white and native workers, protection of
labour, labour insurance, etc).

The formation of exclusive European communist organisations in the
colonies (Egypt, Algeria) is a concealed form of colonialism and is an
aid to imperialist interests. The formation of communist organisations
on national lines is a contradiction of the principle of proletarian
internationalism. All parties belonging to the Communist International
must unceasingly explain to the masses of toilers the importance of the
struggle against imperialist domination in the backward countries. The
communist parties working in the imperialist countries should set up a
special colonial committee of their ECs for this purpose. The aid
rendered by the Communist International to the communist parties of the
East must be expressed in the first place by helping to establish a
press and the publication of journals and periodicals in the native
languages. Special attention must be given to work among the European
labour organisations and among occupational troops to the colonies. The
communist parties in the imperialist countries must not allow a single
opportunity to slip by to expose the predatory policies of their
imperialist governments and their bourgeois and opportunist parties.

(Ibid., 546-59)

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